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We Ascribe Beauty To That Which Is Simple; Which Has No Superfluous Parts; Which Exactly Answers Its End; Which Stands Related To All Things; Which Is The Mean Of Many Extremes.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We Ascribe Beauty To

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We Ascribe Beauty To That Which Is Simple; Which Has No Superfluous Parts; Which Exactly Answers Its End; Which Stands Related To All Things; Which Is The Mean Of Many Extremes.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Highest Virtue Is Always Against The Law.

Reality Is A Sliding Door.

I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

The Prayer Of The Farmer Kneeling In His Field To Weed It, The Prayer Of The Rower Kneeling With The Stroke Of His Oar, Are True Prayers Heard Throughout Nature.

For The World Is Not Painted, Or Adorned, But Is From The Beginning Beautiful; And God Has Not Made Some Beautiful Things, But Beauty Is The Creator Of The Universe.

We Can Only Be Valued As We Make Ourselves Valuable.

The Silence That Accepts Merit As The Most Natural Thing In The World Is The Highest Applause.

Coffee Is Good For Talent, But Genius Wants Prayer.

Great Country, Diminutive Minds. America Is Formless, Has No Terrible And No Beautiful Condensation.

What Strength Belongs To Every Plant And Animal In Nature. The Tree Or The Brook Has No Duplicity, No Pretentiousness, No Show. It Is, With All Its Might And Main, What It Is, And Makes One And The Same Impression And Effect At All Times. All The Thoughts Of A Turtle Are Turtle's, And Of A Rabbit, Rabbit's. But A Man Is Broken And Dissipated By The Giddiness Of His Will; He Does Not Throw Himself Into His Judgments; His Genius Leads Him One Way But 't Is Likely His Trade Or Politics In Quite Another.

All Life Is An Experiment.

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise. Seen From The Nook And Chimneyside Of Prudence, It Wears A Ragged And Dangerous Front.

Science Finds It Methods.

A Man Must Ride Alternately On The Horses Of His Private And His Public Nature.

The Man, Who Has Seen The Rising Moon Break Out Of The Clouds At Midnight, Has Been Present Like An Archangel At The Creation Of Light And Of The World.

No Sensible Person Ever Made An Apology.

Be An Opener Of Doors For Such As Come After Thee.

Or Whipping Its Rough Surface For A Trout.

The Affirmative Of Affirmatives... Is Love.

Our Faith Comes In Moments; Our Vice Is Habitual.

Everything Good Is On The Highway.

But Whoso Is Heroic Must Find Crises To Try His Edge. Human Virtue Demands Her Champions And Martyrs, And The Trial Of Persecution Always Proceeds.

A Sturdy Lad From New Hampshire Or Vermont Who In Turn Tries All The Professions, Who Teams It, Farms It, Peddles, Keeps A School,preaches, Edits A Newspaper, Goes To Congress, Buys A Township, And So Forth, In Successive Years, And Always Like A Cat Falls On His Feet, Is Worth A Hundred Of These City Dolls. He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not "studying A Profession," For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already.

Genius Seems To Consistent Merely In Trueness Of Sight.

There Are Dull And Bright, Sacred And Profane, Coarse And Fine Egotists. It Is A Disease That, Like Influenza, Falls On All Constitutions. In The Distemper Known To Physicians As Chorea, The Patient Sometimes Turns Round, And Continues To Spin Slowly In One Spot. Is Egotism A Metaphysical Varioloid Of This Malady?

When Private Men Shall Act With Original Views, The Lustre Will Be Transferred From The Actions Of Kings To Those Of Gentlemen.

But Wise Men Pierce This Rotten Diction And Fasten Words Again To Visible Things; So That Picturesque Language Is At Once A Commanding Certificate That He Who Employs It, Is A Man In Alliance With Truth And God.

In Our Large Cities, The Population Is Godless, Materialized,--no Bond, No Fellow-feeling, No Enthusiasm. These Are Not Men, But Hungers, Thirsts, Fevers, And Appetites Walking. How Is It People Manage To Live On,--so Aimless As They Are? After Their Peppercorn Aims Are Gained, It Seems As If The Lime In Their Bones Alone Held Them Together, And Not Any Worthy Purpose.

Ah, If The Rich Were Rich As The Poor Fancy Riches.

Undoubtedly We Have No Questions To Ask Which Are Unanswerable. We Must Trust The Perfection Of The Creation So Far, As To Believe That Whatever Curiosity The Order Of Things Has Awakened In Our Minds, The Order Of Things Can Satisfy. Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyphic To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life, Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

The Best Nations Are Those Most Widely Related; And Navigation, As Effecting A World-wide Mixture, Is The Most Potent Advancer Ofnations.

I Believe It Is The Conviction Of The Purest Men, That The Net Amount Of Man And Man Does Not Much Vary. Each Is Incomparably Superior To His Companion In Some Faculty. His Want Of Skill In Other Directions, Has Added To His Fitness For His Own Work.

When I Bought My Farm, I Did Not Know What A Bargain I Had In The Bluebirds, Daffodils And Thrushes; As Little Did I Know What Sublime Mornings And Sunsets I Was Buying.

Revolutions Go Not Backward.

The Power Of A Man Increases Steadily By Continuing In One Direction.

What Is The Imagination? Only An Arm Or Weapon Of The Interior Energy; Only The Precursor Of The Reason.

Thought Is The Seed Of Action; But Action Is As Much Its Second Form As Thought Is Its First. It Rises In Thought, To The End That It May Be Uttered And Acted. Always In Proportion To The Depth Of Its Sense Does It Knock Importunately At The Gates Of The Soul, To Be Spoken, To Be Done.

We Are All Inventors, Each Sailing Out On A Voyage Of Discovery, Guided Each By A Private Chart, Of Which There Is No Duplicate. The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities.

O Friend, My Bosom Said, Through Thee Alone The Sky Is Arched. Through Thee The Rose Is Red; All Things Through Thee Take Nobler Form, And Look Beyond The Earth, The Mill-round Of Our Fate Appears A Sun-path In Thy Worth. Me Too Thy Nobleness Has Taught To Master My Despair; The Fountains Of My Hidden Life Are Through Thy Friendship Fair.

A Cheerful Intelligent Face Is The End Of Culture, And Success Enough. For It Indicates The Purpose Of Nature And Wisdom Attained.

There Is A Blessed Necessity By Which The Interest Of Men Is Always Driving Them To The Right; And, Again, Making All Crime Mean And Ugly.

All The Fairy Tales Of Aladdin, Or The Invisible Gyges, Or The Talisman That Opens Kings' Palaces, Or The Enchanted Halls Underground Or In The Sea, Are Only Fictions To Indicated The One Miracle Of Intellectual Enlargement.

The Earth Is A Machine Which Yields Almost Gratuitous Service To Every Application Of Intellect. Every Plant Is A Manufacturer Of Soil. In The Stomach Of The Plant Development Begins. The Tree Can Draw On The Whole Air, The Whole Earth, On All The Rolling Main. The Plant Is All Suction-pipe,--imbibing From The Ground By Its Root, From The Air By Its Leaves, With All Its Might.

Love Of Beauty Is Taste. The Creation Of Beauty Is Art.

Bare Lists Of Words Are Found Suggestive To An Imaginative And Excited Mind.

We Are The Prisoners Of Ideas.

Two Sorts Of Writers Possess Genius: Those Who Think, And Those Who Cause Others To Think.

Improve Your Spare Moments And They Will Become The Brightest Gems In Your Life.

When Nature Has Work To Be Done, She Creates A Genius To Do It.

One Definition Of Man Is An Intelligence Served By Organs.

The Affections Cannot Keep Their Youth Any More Than Men.

Nature Never Sends A Great Man Into The Planet, Without Confiding The Secret To Another Soul.

The Eye Is The Painter And The Ear The Singer.

The World Exists, As I Understand It, To Teach The Science Of Liberty.

Sunday Is The Core Of Our Civilization, Dedicated To Thought And Reverence.

It Is For Want Of Self-culture That The Superstition Of Travelling, Whose Idols Are Italy, England, Egypt, Retains Its Fascinationfor All Educated Americans.

Perhaps Love Is Only The Highest Symbol Of Friendship, As All Other Things Seem Symbols Of Love.

Astronomy Is A Cold, Desert Science, With All Its Pompous Figures,-depends A Little Too Much On The Glass-grinder, Too Little On The Mind. 't Is Of No Use To Show Us More Planets And Systems. We Know Already What Matter Is, And More Or Less Of It Does Not Signify.

Life Is Wasted In The Necessary Preparation Of Finding What Is The True Way, And We Die Just As We Enter It.

When A Thought Of Plato Becomes A Thought To Me,--when A Truth That Fired The Soul Of Pindar Fires Mine, Time Is No More. When I Feel That We Two Meet In A Perception, That Our Two Souls Are Tinged With The Same Hue, And Do As It Were Run Into One, Why Should I Measure Degrees Of Latitude, Why Should I Count Egyptian Years?

Not For Nothing One Face, One Character, One Fact Makes Much Impression On Him, And Another None.

Tomorrow Is A New Day. You Shall Begin It Well And Serenely

I Am Old, Yet I Look At Wise Men And See That I Am Very Young. I Look Over Those Stars Yonder, And Into The Myriads Of The Aspirant And Ordered Souls, And See I Am A Stranger And A Youth And Have Yet My Spurs To Win. Too Ridiculous Are These Airs Of Age.

The Machine Unmakes The Man. Now That The Machine Is So Perfect, The Engineer Is Nobody.

The Lover Is Made Happier By His Love Than The Object Of His Affection.

Pride Is Handsome, Economical; Pride Eradicates So Many Vices, Letting None Subsist But Itself, That It Seems As If It Were A Great Gain To Exchange Vanity For Pride.

Adopt The Pace Of Nature: Her Secret Is Patience.

Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life.

Public Speaking

You Cannot See The Mountain Near.

I Am Sure Of This, That By Going Much Alone A Man Will Get More Of A Noble Courage In Thought And Word Than From All The Wisdom That Is In Books.

The Eloquent Man Is He Who Is No Beautiful Speaker, But Who Is Inwardly And Desperately Drunk With A Certain Belief.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same.

Manners Are Very Communicable: Men Catch Them From Each Other.

It Is Rare To Find A Man Who Believes In His Own Thoughts Or Speaks That Which He Is Created To Say. As Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common Sense And Plain Dealing, So Nothing Is More Rare In Any Man Than An Act Of His Own...feel Yourself, And Be Not Daunted By Things...the Light By Which We See This World Comes Out From The Soul Of The Observer.

Every Man Alone Is Sincere. At The Entrance Of A Second Person, Hypocrisy Begins. We Parry And Fend The Approach Of Our Fellow-man By Compliments, By Gossip, By Amusements, By Affairs. We Cover Up Our Thought From Him Under A Hundred Folds.

Standing On The Bare Ground,--my Head Bathed By The Blithe Air And Uplifted Into Infinite Space,--all Mean Egotism Vanishes. I Become A Transparent Eyeball; I Am Nothing; I See All; The Currents Of The Universal Being Circulate Through Me; I Am Part Or Parcel Of God.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles. Friend, Client, Child, Sickness, Fear, Want, Charity, All Knock At Once At Thy Closet Door And Say,—'come Out Unto Us.' But Keep Thy State; Come Not Into Their Confusion. The Power Men Possess To Annoy Me I Give Them By A Weak Curiosity. No Man Can Come Near Me But Through My Act.

...in The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In The Streets Or Villages...in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

Every Mind Must Know The Whole Lesson For Itself,-must Go Over The Whole Ground. What It Does Not See, What It Does Not Live, It Will Not Know.

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues.

Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty.

Because The Soul Is Progressive, It Never Quite Repeats Itself, But In Every Act Attempts The Production Of A New And Fairer Whole.

Let No One Honour Me With Tears, Or Bury Me With Lamentation. Why? Because I Fly Hither And Thither, Living In The Mouths Of Me.

All Substances The Cunning Chemist Time Melts Down Into That Liquor Of My Life.

Every Man Is Not So Much A Workman In The World As He Is A Suggestion Of That He Should Be. Men Walk As Prophecies Of The Next Age.

Every Individual Man Has A Bias Which He Must Obey, And...it Is Only As He Feels And Obeys This That He Rightly Develops And Attains His Legitimate Power In The World. It Is His Magnetic Needle, Which Points Always In One Direction To His Proper Path.... He Is Never Happy Nor Strong Until He Finds It, Keeps It.

A Man Makes Inferiors His Superiors By Heat; Self Control Is The Rule. Anger Is An Uncontrollable Feeling That Betrays What You Are When You Are Not Yourself. Anger Is That Powerful Internal Force That Blows Out The Light Of Reason. Know This To Be The Enemy: It Is Anger, Born Of Desire.

We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had With Souls That Made Our Souls Wiser, That Spoke What We Thought, That Told Us What We Knew, That Gave Us Leave To Be What We Inly Are.

As The Sandwich Islander Believes That The Strength And Valor Of The Enemy He Kills Passes Into Himself, So We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

How Much Finer Things Are In Composition Than Alone.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

A Forte Always Makes A Foible.

Every Man Believes He Has A Greater Possibility.

Our Life Seems Not Present, So Much As Prospective; Not For The Affairs On Which It Is Wasted, But As A Hint Of This Vast- Flowingvigor.

Be Brave Enough To Do The Loving Thing.

Why Should All Virtue Work In One And The Same Way? Why Should All Give Dollars? It Is Very Inconvenient To Us Country Folk, And We Do Not Think Any Good Will Come Of It. We Have Not Dollars; Merchants Have; Let Them Give Them. Farmers Will Give Corn; Poets Will Sing; Women Will Sew; Laborers Will Lend A Hand; The Children Will Bring Flowers.

Nor Has Science Sufficient Humanity, So Long As The Naturalist Overlooks The Wonderful Congruity Which Subsists Between Man And The World; Of Which He Is Lord, Not Because He Is The Most Subtile Inhabitant, But Because He Is Its Head And Heart, And Finds Something Of Himself In Every Great And Small Thing, In Every Mountain Stratum, In Every New Law Of Color, Fact Of Astronomy, Or Atmospheric Influence Which Observation Or Analysis Lay Open.

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

The Love Of Novels Is The Preference Of Sentiment To The Senses.

The First Questions Are Always To Be Asked, And The Wisest Doctor Is Gravelled By The Inquisitiveness Of A Child.

I Think Sometimes Could I Only Have Music On My Own Terms, Could I Live In A Great City, And Know Where I Could Go Whenever I Wished The Ablution And Inundation Of Musical Waves, That Were A Bath And A Medicine.

Be A Football To Time And Chance, The More Kicks, The Better, So That You Inspect The Whole Game And Know Its Utmost Law.

By Virtue Of This Science The Poet Is The Namer, Or Language-maker, Naming Things Sometimes After Their Appearance, Sometimes After Their Essence, And Giving To Every One Its Own Name And Not Another's, Thereby Rejoicing The Intellect, Which Delights In Detachment Or Boundary.

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil. It Is Not For You To Choose What He Shall Know, What He Shall Do. It Is Chosen And Foreordained, And He Only Holds The Key To His Own Secret. By Your Tampering And Thwarting And Too Much Governing He May Be Hindered From His End And Kept Out Of His Own. Respect The Child. Wait And See The New Product Of Nature. Nature Loves Analogies, But Not Repetitions. Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

It Is Only When Mind And Character Slumber That The Dress Can Be Seen. If The Intellect Were Always Awake, And Every Noble Sentiment, The Man Might Go In Huckaback Or Mats, And His Dress Would Be Admired And Imitated.

For This Present, Hard Is The Fortune Of The Bard, Born Out Of Time; All His Accomplishment, From Nature's Utmost Treasure Spent, Booteth Not Him.

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey.

Insist On Your Life, Never Imitate... Do That Which Is Assigned To You, And You Cannot Hope Too Much Or Dare Too Much.

Every Man Alone Is Sincere. At The Entrance Of A Second Person, Hypocrisy Begins

The Modernness Of All Good Books Seems To Give Men An Existence As Wide As Man.

Fame Is Proof That The People Are Gullible.

When The Spirit Is Not Master Of The World, Then It Is Its Dupe.

My Angel,-his Name Is Freedom,- Choose Him To Be Your King; He Shall Cut Pathways East And West, And Fend You With His Wing.

If You Don't Ride In The Rain, You Don't Ride.

Riding Your Bike

Manners Have Been Somewhat Cynically Defined To Be A Contrivance Of Wise Men To Keep Fools At A Distance. Fashion Is Shrewd To Detect Those Who Do Not Belong To Her Train, And Seldom Wastes Her Attentions. Society Is Very Swift In Its Instincts, And If You Do Not Belong To It, Resists And Sneers At You, Or Quietly Drops You.

The Civility Of No Race Can Be Perfect Whilst Another Race Is Degraded. It Is A Doctrine Alike Of The Oldest And Of The Newest Philosophy, That Man Is One, And That You Cannot Injure Any Member, Without A Sympathetic Injury To All The Members

Great Men, Great Nations, Have Not Been Boasters And Buffoons, But Perceivers Of The Terror Of Life, And Have Manned Themselves To Face It.

In A Library We Are Surrounded By Many Hundreds Of Dear Friends, But They Are Imprisoned By An Enchanter In These Paper And Leathern Boxes.

Let Us, If We Must Have Great Actions, Make Our Own So. All Action Is Of Infinite Elasticity, And The Least Admits Of Being Inflated With Celestial Air, Until It Eclipses The Sun And Moon.

Society, To Be Sure, Does Not Like This Very Well; It Saith, Whoso Goes To Walk Alone, Accuses The Whole World; He Declares All To Be Unfit To Be His Companions; It Is Very Uncivil, Nay, Insulting; Society Will Retaliate.

Venus, When Her Son Was Lost, Cried Him Up And Down The Coast, In Hamlets, Palaces, And Parks, And Told The Truant By His Marks,- Golden Curls, And Quiver, And Bow.

Let Him Be Great, And Love Shall Follow Him.

Give Me Health And A Day, And I Will Make The Pomp Of Emperors Ridiculous.

Rings And Other Jewels Are Not Gifts, But Apologies For Gifts. The Only Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself.

Deep Insight Will Always, Like Nature, Ultimate Its Thought In A Thing.

Man Is Made Of The Same Atoms The World Is, He Shares The Same Impressions, Predispositions, And Destiny. When His Mind Is Illuminated, When His Heart Is Kind, He Throws Himself Joyfully Into The Sublime Order, And Does, With Knowledge, What The Stones Do By Structure.

The Pleasure Of Eloquence Is In Greatest Part Owing Often To The Stimulus Of The Occasion Which Produces It- - To The Magic Of Sympathy, Which Exalts The Feeling Of Each By Radiating On Him The Feeling Of All.

In The Moment When You Make The Least Petition To God, Though It Be But A Silent Wish That He May Approve You, Or Add One Moment To Your Life,--do You Not, In The Very Act, Necessarily Exclude All Other Beings From Your Thought? In That Act, The Soul Stands Alone With God, And Jesus Is No More Present To Your Mind Than Your Brother Or Your Child.

The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals. Strength Enters Just As Much As The Moral Element Prevails.

What Terrible Questions We Are Learning To Ask! The Former Men Believed In Magic, By Which Temples, Cities, And Men Were Swallowed Up, And All Trace Of Them Gone. We Are Coming On The Secret Of A Magic Which Sweeps Out Of Men's Minds All Vestige Of Theism And Beliefs Which They And Their Fathers Held And Were Framed Upon.

The Glory Of Friendship Is Not The Outstretched Hand, Not The Kindly Smile, Nor The Joy Of Companionship; It Is The Spiritual Inspiration That Comes To One When You Discover That Someone Else Believes In You And Is Willing To Trust You With A Friendship.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody; All Conform To It.

It Seems As If Nature, In Regarding The Geologic Night Behind Her, When, In Five Or Six Millenniums, She Had Turned Out Five Or Six Men, As Homer, Phidias, Menu, And Columbus, Was No Wise Discontented With The Result. These Samples Attested The Virtue Of The Tree.

The Teaching Of Politics Is That The Government, Which Was Set For Protection And Comfort Of All Good Citizens, Becomes The Principal Obstruction And Nuisance With Which We Have To Contend... The Cheat And Bully And Malefactor We Meet Everywhere Is The Government.

Behold The Sea, The Opaline, The Plentiful And Strong, Yet Beautiful As Is The Rose In June, Fresh As The Trickling Rainbow Of July; Sea Full Of Food, The Nourisher Of Kinds, Purger Of Earth, And Medicine Of Men; Creating A Sweet Climate By My Breath, Washing Out Harms And Griefs From Memory, And, In My Mathematic Ebb And Flow, Giving A Hint Of That Which Changes Not.

We Judge Of A Man's Wisdom By His Hope, Knowing That The Inexhaustibleness Of Nature Is An Immortal Youth.

In Strict Science, All Persons Underlie The Same Condition Of An Infinite Remoteness. Shall We Fear To Cool Our Love By Mining Forthe Metaphysical Foundation Of This Elysian Temple? Shall I Not Be As Real As The Things I See? If I Am, I Shall Not Fear To Know Them For What They Are.

No Reason Can Be Asked Or Given Why The Soul Seeks Beauty. Beauty, In Its Largest And Profoundest Sense, Is One Expression For The Universe. God Is The All-fair. Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All.

Different Faces

"though Many Painters And Sculptors Talk Glibly Of "going In For Photography," You Will Find That Very Few Of Them Can Ever Make A Picture By Photography; They Lack The Science, Technical Knowledge, And Above All The Practice. Most People Think They Can Play Tennis, Shoot, Write Novels, And Photograph As Well As Any Other Person - Until They Try."

Cities Of Mortals Woe-begone Fantastic Care Derides, But In The Serious Landscape Lone Stern Benefit Abides.

Science Was False By Being Unpoetical. It Assumed To Explain A Reptile Or A Mollusk, And Isolated It-which Is Hunting For Life In Graveyards. Reptile Or Mollusk Or Man Or Angel Only Exists In System, In Relation.

Common Sense Is Genius Dressed In Its Working Clothes.

The Rule For Hospitality And Irish "help," Is, To Have The Same Dinner Every Day Throughout The Year. At Last, Mrs. O'shaughnessylearns To Cook It To A Nicety, The Host Learns To Carve It, And The Guests Are Well Served.

Let Us Not Look East And West For Materials Of Conversation, But Rest In Presence And Unity. A Just Feeling Will Fast Enough Supply Fuel For Discourse, If Speaking Be More Grateful Than Silence. When People Come To See Us, We Foolishly Prattle, Lest We Be Inhospitable. But Things Said For Conversation Are Chalk Eggs. Don't Say Things. What You Are Stands Over You The While, And Thunders So That I Cannot Hear What You Say To The Contrary.

In Sculpture Did Ever Anybody Call The Apollo A Fancy Piece? Or Say Of The Laocoon How It Might Be Made Different? A Masterpiece Of Art Has In The Mind A Fixed Place In The Chain Of Being, As Much As A Plant Or A Crystal.

I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Raise My Own Arm. I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Remember. I Can Believe It Because I Can Speak And Be Understood By You.

Women, More Than All, Are The Element And Kingdom Of Illusion. Being Fascinated, They Fascinate.

The Religions Of The World Are The Ejaculations Of A Few Imaginative Men.

The Best Bribe Which London Offers To-day To The Imagination, Is, That, In Such A Vast Variety Of People And Conditions, One Can Believe There Is Room For Persons Of Romantic Character To Exist, And That The Poet, The Mystic, And The Hero May Hope To Confront Their Counterparts.

What Your Heart Thinks Is Great, Is Great. The Soul's Emphasis Is Always Right.

The Mob Is Man Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Of The Beast. Its Fit Hour Of Activity Is Night. Its Actions Are Insane Like Its Whole Constitution. It Persecutes A Principle; It Would Whip A Right; It Would Tar And Feather Justice, By Inflicting Fire And Outrage Upon The Houses And Persons Of Those Who Have These. It Resembles The Prank Of Boys, Who Run With Fire-engines To Put Out The Ruddy Aurora Streaming To The Stars.

Some Men, At The Approach Of A Dispute, Neigh Like Horses.

Courage Of The Soldier Awakes The Courage Of Woman.

Though The Wide Universe Is Full Of Good, No Kernel Of Nourishing Corn Can Come To Him But Through His Toil Bestowed On That Plot Of Ground Which Is Given To Him To Till.

That Which Befits Us, Embosomed In Beauty And Wonder As We Are, Is Cheerfulness, And Courage, And The Endeavor To Realize Our Aspirations. Shall Not The Heart Which Has Received So Much, Trust The Power By Which It Lives? May It Not Quit Other Leadings, And Listen To The Soul That Has Guided It So Gently, And Taught It So Much, Secure That The Future Will Be Worthy Of The Past?

We Imperatively Require A Perception Of And A Homage To Beauty In Our Companions. Other Virtues Are In Request In The Field And Workyard, But A Certain Degree Of Taste Is Not To Be Spared In Those We Sit With.

An English Family Consists Of A Few Persons, Who, From Youth To Age, Are Found Revolving Within A Few Feet Of Each Other, As If Tied By Some Invisible Ligature, Tense As That Cartilage Which We Have Seen Attaching The Two Siamese.

There Are Faces So Fluid With Expression, So Flushed And Rippled By The Play Of Thought, That We Can Hardly Find What The Mere Features Really Are. When The Delicious Beauty Of Lineament Loses Its Power, It Is Because A More Delicious Beauty Has Appeared, That An Interior And Durable Form Has Been Disclosed.

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite And Builds A Road Into Chaos And Old Night, And Is Followed By Those Who Hear Him With Something Of Wild, Creative Delight.

Why Should Not We Have A Poetry And Philosophy Of Insight And Not Of Tradition, And A Religion By Revelation To Us, And Not The History Of Theirs?

Pride Ruined The Angels.

Where There Is No Vision A People Perish.

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters,—a Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man.

So . . . I Feel In Regard To This Aged England . . . Pressed Upon By Transitions Of Trade And . . . Competing Populations,-i See Her Not Dispirited, Not Weak, But Well Remembering That She Has Seen Dark Days Before;-indeed, With A Kind Of Instinct That She Sees A Little Better In A Cloudy Day, And That, In Storm Of Battle And Calamity, She Has A Secret Vigor And A Pulse Like A Cannon.

The Right Eloquence Needs No Bell To Call The People Together, And No Constable To Keep Them.

Art And Power Will Go On As They Have Done,--will Make Day Out Of Night, Time Out Of Space, And Space Out Of Time.

It Seems As If The Day Was Not Wholly Profane In Which We Have Given Heed To Some Natural Object.

Slavery It Is That Makes Slavery; Freedom, Freedom. The Slavery Of Women Happened When The Men Were Slaves Of Kings.

I Covet Truth; Beauty Is Unripe Childhood's Cheat; I Leave It Behind With The Games Of Youth.

The Wise Man, The True Friend, The Finished Character, We Seek Everywhere, And Only Find In Fragments.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree; Or Draw A Child By Studying The Outlines Of Its Form Merely But By Watching For A Time His Motions And Plays, The Painter Enters Into His Nature And Can Then Draw Him At Every Attitude.

Conversation Is An Evanescent Relation,--no More.

In Conversation The Game Is, To Say Something New With Old Words. And You Shall Observe A Man Of The People Picking His Way Along, Step By Step, Using Every Time An Old Boulder, Yet Never Setting His Foot On An Old Place.

To Be Able To Discern That What Is True Is True, And That What Is False Is False,--this Is The Mark And Character Of Intelligence.

Do What You're Afraid To Do.

A Man Of No Conversation Should Smoke.

The Poet Alone Knows Astronomy, Chemistry, Vegetation, And Animation, For He Does Not Stop At These Facts, But Employs Them As Signs. He Knows Why The Plain, Or Meadow Of Space, Was Strown With These Flowers We Call Suns, And Moons, And Stars; Why The Deep Is Adorned With Animals, With Men, And Gods; For, In Every Word He Speaks He Rides On Them As The Horses Of Thought.

The Axioms Of Physics Translate The Laws Of Ethics. Thus, "the Whole Is Greater Than Its Part;" "reaction Is Equal To Action;" "the Smallest Weight May Be Made To Lift The Greatest, The Difference Of Weight Being Compensated By Time;" And Many The Like Propositions, Which Have An Ethical As Well As Physical Sense. These Propositions Have A Much More Extensive And Universal Sense When Applied To Human Life, Than When Confined To Technical Use.

Each Man Too Is A Tyrant In Tendency, Because He Would Impose His Idea On Others; And Their Trick Is Their Natural Defence. Jesuswould Absorb The Race; But Tom Paine Or The Coarsest Blasphemer Helps Humanity By Resisting This Exuberance Of Power.

To Be A Star, You Must Shine Your Own Light, Follow Your Path, And Don't Worry About The Darkness, For That Is When The Stars Shine Brightest. Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.

Nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeare's Wit.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong. There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right. To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs. Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

Every Evil To Which We Do Not Succumb Is A Benefactor.

We Shun The Rugged Battle Of Fate Where Strength Is Born.

Cannot We Let [children] Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make Another You. One's Enough.

Take The Place And Attitude To Which You See Your Unquestionable Right, And All Men Acquiesce.

The Boxer's Ring Is The Enjoyment Of The Part Of Society Whose Animal Nature Alone Has Been Developed.

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is. How Many Times Must We Say Rome, And Paris, And Constantinople! What Does Rome Know Of Rat And Lizard? What Are Olympiads And Consulates To These Neighboring Systems Of Being? Nay, What Food Or Experience Or Succor Have They For The Esquimaux Seal-hunter, Or The Kanaka In His Canoe, For The Fisherman, The Stevedore, The Porter?

Dream Delivers Us To Dream, And There Is No End To Illusion. Life Is Like A Train Of Moods Like A String Of Beads, And, As We Pass Through Them, They Prove To Be Many-colored Lenses Which Paint The World Their Own Hue. . . .

Bad Times Have A Scientific Value. These Are Occasions A Good Learner Would Not Miss.

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Sentiment, I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes.

Every Man Is Actually Weak, And Apparently Strong. To Himself, He Seems Weak; To Others, Formidable.

...most Men Have Bound Their Eyes With One Or Another Handkerchief, And Attached Themselves To Some One Of These Communities Of Opinion. This Conformity Makes Them Not False In A Few Particulars, Authors Of A Few Lies, But False In All Particulars. Their Every Truth Is Not Quite True. Their Two Is Not The Real Two, Their Four Not The Real Four; So That Every Word They Say Chagrins Us, And We Know Not Where To Begin To Set Them Right.

I Have Heard That Stiff People Lose Something Of Their Awkwardness Under High Ceilings, And In Spacious Halls. I Think, Sculptureand Painting Have An Effect To Teach Us Manners, And Abolish Hurry.

Some Will Always Be Above Others. Destroy The Inequality Today, And It Will Appear Again Tomorrow.

Finish Each Day Before You Begin The Next, And Interpose A Solid Wall Of Sleep Between The Two. This You Cannot Do Without Temperance.

It Takes A Good Deal Of Character To Judge A Person By His Future Instead Of His Past

Commonsense Is The Wick Of The Candle.

To Believe In Luck ... Is Skepticism.

I Didn't Find My Friends; The Good Lord Gave Them To Me.

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Anthony Horowitz

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